The Cult of the Victim-Veteran explores the pool of American post- Vietnam War angst that rightists began plying in the 1980s. Ronald Reagan-s 1984 proclamation of a new "Morning in America" encoded the war as the moment of the nation-s fall from grace; it was the meme plagiarized by Donald Trump for his "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) slogan.
The national funk tapped for right- wing revanchism was psychologized when George H.W. Bush appropriated post- Vietnam syndrome, the diagnostic forerunner to post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), to memorialize the military accomplishments in the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991-we had "kicked the Vietnam Syndrome." America was a victim- nation, its trauma emblemized by PTSD-stricken veterans whose war mission had been lost on the home front, cast aside, even spat on, upon return home.
In this book we see the long historical threads woven for MAGA: the twining of traditional and modern ways of knowing that imbues war
